It is known that there is a relation between Absolute Time and Relative Time. Do you think the two terms exist in your field, if yes, Do you have any examples?
Dear Jeanan, without being a relativist, there are a number of relationships between "relative" and "absolute".
They can be complementary, but they can also be opposite, they can intertwine, and they can be also hierarchical - depending on the context, depending on the moment. By this I mean thee is no a unique relationship between this terms.
As to my field (one of them), it is logics, whence my opinion...
Dear Carlos,
Do you have an example for each case? Just to compare between situations.
Thanks.
Dear Jeanan:
There is a good article I read on "Absolute Time and Relative Time" and I have given link of this article for your reference. This answers your query well with examples.
Best wishes, Sundar
http://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/everyday-myths/time-dilation1.htm
Best example
- Absolute VO2max does not consider a person’s weight.
- Relative VO2max does consider a person’s weight.
Philosophically, the thing/concept/value which do not need a reference to define or qualify itself is absolute, on the other hand if some thing is being expressed by defining or comparing it with some other thing/value/concept its relative.
Investors often quote their returns in absolute terms. For example, they might say they earned an 8% return on their portfolio. But if we're really trying to measure the performance of an investment, then we need to understand absolute versus relative returns too.
In this article, we're going to explain the differences between absolute return, also known as total return, and relative return. As part of that explanation, we'll first provide a definition of each term, as well as its calculation. Next, we'll talk about why it's important to consider both measures of an investment's performance, and provide examples to illustrate this point. Finally, we'll summarize the value of these two terms, and explain how they can be used by investors to evaluate the growth of their holdings.
http://www.money-zine.com/investing/investing/absolute-versus-relative-return/
Absolutely anything is relative, by definition, as no word has a meaning other than the one we choose to give it.
Dear Jeanan,
I believe these two terms are quite close to each other. However, term relative needs a third party for it's completeness, i.e. with reference to something. But, absolute doesn't need any such stuff, it's self explanatory.
An bsolute value refers to a value compared to an absolute standard. A relative value refers to a value compared to an arbitrary other value. As dear Roland said that Absolute risk of a disease is your risk of developing the disease over a time period, whereas relative risk is used to compare the risk in two different groups of people.
The term 'Absolute' is stated without any context whereas the term 'Relative' is a comparison between different levels. For example, one has a 50 percent chance of flipping a coin and getting heads, or a one in a hundred chance of getting lung cancer if has never smoked. These are not compared to any other factor and are just probability of something occurring and may be expressed as percentages, or as ratios. The two terms can be complementary, but can also be contradictory as well depending on facts and circumstances.
How many values behind the comma do you need to get an absolute value
(e.g. A=1,123456789.......)?
Dear Krishnan,
@ Absolute VO2max does not consider a person’s weight.
Relative VO2max does consider a person’s weight.
So, Do scientists depends on the Absolute facts or Relative facts?
@ Roland, Very interesting explanation about the difference between Absolute and relative... Thanks.
Dear Shafig,
Can we say that after comparing with others, and having relative issues, We can generalize the result as an absolute result for the last year (for example)?
The question reads “What is the relationship between the term Absolute and Relative?” and we are requested to give example in our field.
Suppose there are two persons located at two geographically distant places that are 10Km apart. They have their own clocks. They decide to start some work at t = t0. They decided this when they met last which was 10 days before the date on which they decided to start the work. On the meeting day they synchronized their clocks. However, there is no guarantee that the clocks will remain synchronized after 10 days and therefore at the instant when t=t0 is read on the clock belonging to person A may not give the same time on the clock belonging to person B. Synchronization using a communication link is not possible because message transmission takes finite time. That is access to global (absolute) time is impossible for both the persons. This is a common problem in distributed computation. Some times it is necessary to get an ordering of distributed events. This problem has been solved by introducing the concept of distributed queue.
Leslie Lamport. 1978. Time, clocks, and the ordering of events in a distributed system. Commun. ACM 21, 7 (July 1978), 558-565. DOI=10.1145/359545.359563 http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/359545.359563
In chemistry, an internal energy of a system (U) is the sum of all the kinetic energy (K.E) & all the potential energy (P.E) that a system possesses. Assume we are considering a sample of water, then K.E (which is energy by virtue of motion) will involve all possible motions starting from the electrons to the bonds to the water molecules to the place in which the sample is found (a moving earth in a moving solar system in a moving milky way galaxy) & the same applies to P.E (which is energy by virtue of position) which contains all positions from where the sample is placed to the location of the sample in the context of the universe.
Obviously, U is an absolute value of so many things which is impossible to deal with by the human abilities.
However, a change in U = Ufinal –Uinitial = ∆ U is easy to deal with since the universal considerations (which are impossible to consider collectively) will be eliminated. We just can find the change in internal energy of water upon heating or cooling easily by simple experimentation, since this change is focused on the relative values of 2 detected states.
It is a kind similar to relationship between axiom and theorem.An axiom is a statement that is accepted as true. It does not need to be proven. A theorem, on the other hand is a statement that has been proven true.
Geometry can visualize the relationships between relative and absolute time, and the visualization is applicable to music! Newtonian physics makes (absolute) space completely independent of time. Geometrically plotted, they form a right angle, with the vertical space axis perpendicular to the horizontal time axis. Yet the theory of relativity regards no phenomenon as purely spatial or purely temporal, but rather only more-or-less spatial or more-or-less temporal. Geometrically, this relationship is expressible on a graph with an acute angle between the space a body travels and time taken for such travel. Compare the horizontal representation of absolute time with the diagonal line representing relative time.
Now, in music chords cannot exist with total simultaneity. Their space-like component, dictated by relativity theory, impels chords toward succession. Even on a single instrument a chord is played with one note slightly after another, as an oscilloscope can demonstrate. Conversely, the most perfect melody presents some component of a chord, of simultaneity. The amount of simultaneity (chord) and succession (melody) varies with every piece and every performance.
The implications for composing are astounding: music can metaphorically "suggest" timeless, empty open space by minimizing melody, slowing tempo, using many chords. See Borodin, "On the Steppes of Asia" or Falla, "Sonnet to Cordoba." Contrariwise, music can "metaphorically" suggest action-packed temporality by complicating the melody, speeding up tempo, and using few chords. Example: Chopin´s "Minute Waltz."
See Juan David Garcia Bacca, "Filosofía de la música," Barcelona: 1990, pp. 173-74.
The time of the Allah's (The God) existence (the first with no beginning ) is the absolute time while the beginning of another action like beginning of the life on earth and its duration is relative to it. So Allah says in Quran "that one day for God is equal 1000 year in human life".
Another example, the day begins with 1, 2, 3, .. (24 h) but when some one wake up at 7 O'clock he may begins to count his day and work as 1, 2,3,.. (8 h of work).
Dear Aiman,
Your example of absolute versus relative time is a very good one.
A point of clarification: when we read "1000 years" in the context that you cite from the Quran, may we safely assume that this expression is metaphorical, and that "1000" is equivalent to infinity? Otherwise, Allah´s existence would be subject to a numerical limitation greater than Himself. Moreover, interpreting "1000" as merely metaphorical would make human, relative time less significant as compared with divine time.
Dear Aiman,
According to my definition of Time:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263104630
it is not necessary for us to be so much complicated about time.
The problem has arised after the almost religious way of accepting relativity theories (ie by struggling all arguments that show the inconsistency of relativities).
If you have one observer and another one that is moving relatively to the first one, then you can find some formulas that relate the time that the two clocks show. But there are so many problems that make me not to want introducing you in troubles...
Roughly speaking if you have a stable periodic phenomenon like the Earth's orbit around the sun, then you can measure a kind of 'absolute time' by counting the number of processions around the sun.
Article A simple definition of Time
Very interesting comments from you Sirs. The absolute value is that one which is very much longer than the one you measure, like infinity, it is an endless numbering for numbers and infinite distance for the universe is very large but the infinite distance from an atom is very short relative to the universe.
Dear Demetris:
In my opinion (which may be an error), the difficulty with your definition of time is that you relativize it by making it dependent on space. Here is another definition of time, formulated by Xavier Zubiri and making time conditioned by being (irrespective of its spatiality): time is "being-there flowing" and "being-there giving of itself." "Being-there" means an actuality, the actuality of the real. "Flowing" means giving of oneself, that is, shedding into the world one´s essential properties. By this simple definition, time is grounded in being and is a mode of being. An orange exists in time by giving of its essential properties: color, roundness, juiciness. God persists in eternity (the essence of time) by giving of His infinite richness. See Xavier Zubiri, "Dynamic Structure of Reality," Urbana, Illinois: U. Illinois Press, 2003, pp. 192-93. Zubiri´s conception would elucidate the meaning of the Quranic passage cited by Aiman.
Dear Jeanan
Absolute is a constant irrespective of the frame of reference.. Relative time seems to be a different but related phenomenon.
A serious lesson on the concept of Absolute and Relative expected to last at least twenty-five hundred years, as much as the real debate. The notion of the Absolute I brought to mind one of its opposite, namely, the concept of Relative, became quite fashionable since clerics of the highest levels and even secular thinkers have begun a campaign against the so-called relativism, became derogatory term. Therefore, I will not to clarify but to confuse the ideas, trying to suggest how each of these terms means - according to the circumstances and contexts - a lot of things different, and therefore they do not like to be used as baseball bats.
Talking about the absolute in a laic context, let' s not forget Hegel's concept of the "absolute knowledge" (absolutes Wissen), a singular concept in the entire history of philosophy - non existent before Hegel. And, back to the post, Hegel points out (at the end of his "Phenomenology of the Mind") without even enter into any discuss about the "relative".
Very interesting debate.
"We believe that the world will finally be saved; and if it happens to find that those who will save the world does not correspond to the image we had of them" F Mauriac (I beg your pardon for the translation) !!
In my practice; sometimes it is required in Hard-core smokers unable to stop smoking immediatly to prefer harm reduction before (maybe) a complete cessation...
The man who wants the best, often is obliged to prefer the less worse...we know we cannot make the sun rise and yet we continue to watch the dawn; this is a part of human condition.
"The man who wants the best, often is obliged to prefer the less worse." A deep statement, M. Perriot, applicable to many elections here in our U. S. democracy (and I suspect in other democracies around the world)! Recently, in the tiny State of Connecticut, we had gubernatorial elections. Two main candidates were running for governor, and I remember thinking and hearing others say that they would vote for the less bad of the two evils. Relativity determines democratic practice nowadays.
@ Jeanan, Do scientists depends on the Absolute facts or Relative facts?
This is depended on the research, where the data capture requires "Absolute values" or "has allowance and tolerance" to measurement.
In Management terms we have "Quantitative" and "Qualitative" datas.
Quantitative is Absolute while Qualitative is Relative
Any definition needs a universe of discourse. Here also it should be defined first before we distinguish between absolute and relative time. We consider our universe of discourse contains a set of distinct agents (may be countable infinite). The absolute time is the property of the universe. If the agents are concentrated at a single place then the absolute time is accessible and measurable to them, that is, if the universe collapses to a single point the time definition becomes absolute. However if they are geographically distributed this property does not exist. This is so because in case of distributed scenario, finite time is necessary for information transmission. To read the absolute clock one needs at least one bit of information to be transmitted which would take arbitrary time and therefore the clock value can never be accurately obtained. Two agents may get the same absolute time value at a single instant. The agents however, can maintain there individual clocks that are relative to themselves and may not have any correlation among them. Possibly then space time combination is responsible for individual identities in time domain.
Dear Vitaly,
@ Question: how much is two times two?
5- Philosophy: It Could be infinity, or any other number, depends on what is the two
Dear Nelson, if we define time as a self existed entity, then we create more problems than those we solve. Since I have not access to your mentioned book I cannot write something more about Xavier Zubiri's work.
The concepts of absolute and relative change also apply to indicators measured in percentage terms, for example unemployment rate. For such indicators,
Absolute change also refers to the change in the indicator in percentage points, i.e. value of the indicator in period 2 minus that in period 1.
Relative change also refers to the change in the indicator in percentage terms, i.e. absolute change as a percentage of the value of the indicator in period 1.
http://stats.mom.gov.sg/SL/Pages/Absolute-vs-Relative-Change-Concepts-and-Definitions.aspx
Relative refers to a conventional reference while absolute refers to a number or unit without reference point.
Dear Krishnan,
@ Quantitative is Absolute while Qualitative is Relative
Don't you think that : Absolute Quantitative data depends (as a base) on relative values, and Relative Qualitative data depends (as a base) on Absolute values?
It is interesting: in qPCR, when speaking of an Absolute standard curve versus a Relative standard curve... the Absolute standard curve is only as good as the relative care taken to prepare it in the first place, so, relative to the care taken, the Absolute curve establishes its ability to be truthful - but only on a relative basis depending on the degree of care invested. Both absolute and relative forms reveal the same magnitude of the trends of difference. It is all relatively absolute - and rarely strictly absolute. Estimations of the absolute can be relatively meaningful however...
Dear Vitaly,
You reminded me about the different answers in Philosophy to the age-old question: “What is 1 + 1?”
Unfortunately, when it comes to philosophy, this is a rather tedious and boring answer. Even more to the point: it does not describe everyone.
1 + 1 = 1
Those people who wish to focus on the unity of life can easily see 1 + 1 = 1. They will relate it to love and relationships. They will relate it to the oneness someone can achieve with the universe. In a marriage, two individuals become one.
1 + 1 = 3
Visual or hearing learners should get this one. “One plus one” has three words to it, so thus one plus one equals three. Usually one or two people would get it, and they would usually see it by counting it out on their fingers. Her background was in music and art, so the realization of 1 + 1 = 3 came naturally to her.
Another simple example, A man and a woman got married, when having the first baby it will be: 1+1=3
With the second baby:1+1=4, and so on
A funny example: 1(cucumber) +1 (tomato)+ 1(green pepper)+1(onion)...= 1(salad) :)
Dear Jack,
I totally agree with you @ Estimations of the absolute can be relatively meaningful.
@ Jack, 1 multiverse = 1 permutation of every possibility =1 huge salad~!
We may adopt your equation as a philosophical definition for salad :)
A large number of orchestra instrumentalists (1 + 1 + ... +1) + Composer + Maestro = One Symphony.
I have to modify Jeanan's answer slightly..
A large number of orchestra instrumentalists (1 + 1 + ... +1) + Composer + Conductor + GOOD MUSIC = Symphony.
A large number of orchestra instrumentalists (1 + 1 + ... +1) + Composer + Conductor + BAD MUSIC = Cacophony.
What constitutes 'good music' or 'bad music' is not Absolute but Relative!!
Best wishes, Sundar
Obviously, we can cancel the common factor (a-b), only when (a-b) is not equal to zero. So, it is NOT logically correct to replace 'a' with equal 'b' in the next step.
If we take U = 0, then 3 U = 4 U ------> Cancel out U ---> 3 = 4
Cancelling out 0 can lead to illogical conclusions :)
With best wishes, Sundar
With reference to Physics
(Absolute) uncertainty - the amount (often stated in the form ± d x) that along with the measured value, indicates the range in which the desired or true value most likely lies. The total uncertainty of a value. The error. (Taylor does not distinguish between the terms error and uncertainty.)
Relative (fractional) uncertainty - the absolute uncertainty divided by the measured value, often expressed as a percentage or in parts per million (ppm)
http://user.physics.unc.edu/~deardorf/uncertainty/definitions.html
Dear Sundarapandian,
@ A large number of orchestra instrumentalists (1 + 1 + ... +1) + Composer + Conductor + GOOD MUSIC = Symphony.
A large number of orchestra instrumentalists (1 + 1 + ... +1) + Composer + Conductor + BAD MUSIC = Cacophony.
Do you think Good Music and Bad Music in this equation are relative values or absolute values?
Dear Jeanan:
I already answered this - good music and bad music are relative values only..
I am a big fan of Johann Sebastian Bach in classical music - but Bach's music is from the baroque music era, and some may like later works of Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Schumann or Tchaikovsky. Though I like Tchaikovsky's symphonies and piano concertos very much, there are some friends, who are music critics, and they make certain criticisms on Tchaikovsky's works on some musical issues. There are many who enjoy Wagner's operas, but there are also some who find Wagner's music very "loud" or "too complex". There are also many like me who enjoy the music of Philip Glass - especially his music to films like "Koyaanisqatsi" - but his minimalistic style of music may not appeal to all. Some may ask - "Why Glass is playing the same music again and again? Is the CD stuck or something?"
So there is no doubt at all - music - like any other art - has relative value only.
As always, we live with the relative merits in life - in arts, music,etc. and we make the best out of it.
To conclude.. one joke..
One person was making 'rude comments' of a picture exhibition by a Modern Artist..
At the end of his visit, he asked - "What is that ugly figure?"
Artist's reply - "It is just a mirror, Sir"
With best wishes, Sundar
Dear Brenda,
Thank you for the explanation.
I agree with you, Patients with serious life threatening illnesses are really dealing with relative values according to their body system against the disease. Sometimes a complicated system works ( as you said about chaos ) "A patient can seem to be in a state of chaos, but eventually order will grow out of it", and against all odds the patient lives much longer or is somehow cured.
Apropos illnesses as seemingly by chance and absolute or relative time, this 11/13/2014 article -- "Marching to Our Own Sequences Study finds DNA replication timing varies among people" at http://hms.harvard.edu/news/marching-our-own-sequences -- makes the case for relative or unique/inherited individual timing in DNA replication as determining (absolute/not by chance) whether or not a certain disease will ensue, adding another dimension to genome sequencing mapping.
Interesting question.. I think both have their place. There are some absolute immutable truths, especially those governing the basics of birth, life, death, growth etc. But the majority of our lived experiences and perceptions are all relative. Certain domains like Mathematics justifiably accord value to reductionist ideas because that's how they are: a triangle will always have three sides. That said, Mathematics too does have plenty of room of relative abstractions. In the Social Sciences, the role of the relative is far greater though. All kinds of social, cultural, psychological, and ethical concerns are highly relative and context-dependent.
While there is a black and white, there's a huge grey area that spans the spectrum between those two colours. And that's the spectrum we refer to as life.
After going through all the replies here, I forgot what was the question. So, I had to read it again.. This is absolutely a great discussion :) [Relative view only]
Dear Jeanan:
Attached to this conversation box there is a text I believe may interest you and yours followers. Do not worry about the language, I have one in Japanese.
This text is related to teaching, creative thinking and phylosophy. The text was writen in 1963 when the author was politically exiled in Chile.The professor Paulo Freire is one of the most important authority in Education in the world. His page can be find in www.fei.uem.br/seeds/cultural hall/Instituto Paulo Freire.
Please, try to find a person for translating this text for you. I have been applying it for about 30 years in my class room about Seed Science and Technology.
The text represents a jump into the methodology applied to University Teaching
I hope you enjoy it.
Best regards.
José Walter Carneiro.
Those who like Mathematics (like I do) may kindly read the following paper related to this topic:
Absolute versus Relative Time in Process Algebras (Flavio Corradini, Information and Computation, vol. 156, pp. 122-172, 2000).
It is a long mathematical paper and the enclosed link gives an abstract / references.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0890540199928213
Absolute time does not change in position, while relative time changes in position related to absolute time. For example, considering absolute time is the center and relative time is changing position either in a pattern like in a circle or randomly around it. I think relativity theory with respect to spatial time might explain this question more clearly.
To say something is absolutely true means that it is independently true for all, even if they do not know it or recognize it to be true. To say something is relatively true means that it can be true for one person and not for another. For example, beauty is a matter of opinion; it’s a relative truth. The relative exists within the framework of the absolute.
The terms relative and absolute refer to some value, could be numerical or otherwise. Such value is normally associated with an entity by a mapping from entity space to its legal value space. If this legal value space can be generated independently then the corresponding value is absolute. On the other hand if the above generation depends on some other value set then it is relative.
In my earlier post I have not included any observer in my universe of discourse. The definition assumed a mapping to the value space. Dr. Tripathi has introduced the concept of observer while discussing the characteristic of a truth value. Let me try to accommodate the role of observers in general in my definition. One suggestion could be to consider that the legal value space is not unique for a given entity. It is the observer that selects one from among the available spaces. The second suggestion is to use observer dependent mapping. I do not know which one should be the correct approach. For absoluteness, however, there should not be ant ambiguity. There must be a single unique value set for all observers.
Indian Health
Inequalities in immunization exist by household wealth and education, with absolute and relative inequalities showing signs of reduction over time. Inequalities exist by caste: in 2005–6, immunization coverage among scheduled tribes and scheduled castes was 31.3% and 39.7% respectively compared to 53.8% among other castes with absolute inequalities between these castes increasing over time. Coverage remains higher in urban areas (58%) compared to rural areas (39%), although absolute and relative urban-rural differences have decreased over time. Over time, the absolute gender gap has increased with an absolute 2.6% gender gap in 1992–3 increasing to 3.8% gender gap in 2005–6.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3093249/
I agree with you Krishnan, Although sometime we have to deal with the absolute as a fact, but ignoring the details.
For example when you have 80% students that are within the average and above the average, we can say as an absolute fact you have a high level students. Actually in this way we are ignoring the 20% students that are under the level.
Absolute time means the deadline is approaching; Relative time means there is some slack.
I also need to add that if one could control or at least observe both absolute time and relative time, time travel would not be too far away, although there are many paradoxes (philosophy, physics, mathematics) and practical challenges (material science, medical) to solve before that.
Dear Juehui,
Cars roll, accelerate them to infinity ...
Cars disappear.
How to prove their existence?
Time is the reason for its own existence, the ultimate measure.
It attributes its existence to matter ...
Without time, it does not exist.
Time is unity.
I recommend you to watch this interesting movie
"Lucy" (2014) - Angol Felirat - AlienSubtitles
I'm sorry, I don't understand what you mean by saying "Watch Babies."
Hi Jeanan,
I like the way you prove a theory or philosophical question. You are right we cannot see the car because our eye has limitations in distance not meaning the car actually vanished. You are also correct about time as a measurement to all existence. I like the movie you have recommended.
You might also be interested in those films: Back to The Future (1985, 1989, 1990); Time After Time (1979); The Time Machine (1960, 2002); Men in Black 3 (2012); Timecop (1994); Star Trek: First Contact (1996); The Final Countdown (1980); The Philadelphia Experiment (1984, 1993); Planet of the Apes (1968, 2001); Timeline (2003); Timestalkers (1987).
Thank you,
Richard
Hi Jeanan,
I think Jose's answer is intended for the movie Lucy (2014) you recommended.
Babies is a wonderful film about raising children in four different societies.
It worth to see
I think that human are the absolute dominant species on the planet earth, but relative to the whole universe.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Theoretical Physics
- Time